That Hurt

And worse yet, it’s going to continue to hurt for days. No, I’m not talking about my latest social encounter, I’m talking about my first 5 rounds of Muay Thai in 3 months. Naturally, since there’s something wrong with me, I did them all with The Paddy.

It’s strange coming back after so long. A part of you thinks you still have the power and timing you had before. This makes the first few times back more frustrating than anything else as you go to do things that just don’t work. In many respects, it may well be easier to be a novice starting from scratch. I did 2 rounds of pads and then 5 rounds of sparring, the first round was hard, and then it got progressively worse after that. To make matters worse, in the very last round as I was tiring and trying to connect, I caught Paddy with an elbow in close and opened up a gash on his eyelid… and it’s his birthday… I am an arsehole.I did 3 or 4 rounds of MMA the night before and I didn’t feel this bad afterwards, so maybe there’s just something about Paddy.

Anyway, for my shame, here’s our first round from this morning. You can turn this movie into a drinking game if you like. For every time Paddy kicks me in the leg and I fail to check it, you have to take a shot. Have the stomach pumpers in the hospital on stand-by. I’ve also left in the rest between rounds, which Paddy said was a minute but he’s a tricksy little hobbit. I might be out of condition but I know what a 45 second rest feels like. In fact, I reckon BECAUSE I’m out of condition I know what a 45 second rest feels like. You can all hear what I thought of Paddy for doing something so low down and dirty to a rehabbing man.

It’s actually been a slow enough week. On Monday I was fending off the tail end of a head cold/manflu and a wee bit of a hangover thanks to going to see Dylan Moran on Sunday night (hilarious). So I didn’t train, in part because of that and in part because I didn’t want to infect the rest of the crew. I woke up Tuesday feeling much better so I did S1 and then later on did a full MMA session for the first time in 3 months. A warm up, 3 rounds pummelling, a bit of technique, some jits with hits (JwH is like BJJ except you can hit your opponent), and then, I think, 3 rounds in the ring, one of which was in the new sparring apparatus I’ve conceived for amateur rules. I’ll explain more about that in a further post.